back to the party isles....

Koh Phangan Travel Blog

After a short ferry ride from big buddha pier (samui) we arrived at Had Rinn beach on the familiar island of koh phangan, where we first came on holiday last year. Everything seemed to be just as it was when left last time and the all too familiar shout of people trying to hustle you into a taxi!!!!. We shared a cramped minibus with some other new arrivals to Ban tai where we were due to stay for the next 2 weeks at Liberty Bungalows. It was good to get back there after the time we spent last year, and although there were only a couple of familiar faces it took little time to get to know the rest of the people staying there....even Good-dog was still there !!!!!We mostly spent much of our time at Libertys chilling out, eating and drinking too much and lazing around doing very little all day (a good excuse for this is that April is the hottest month with temperatures soaring into there 40's!), whilst occasionally partying into the small hours during the night.

One such evening was at the infamous 'Full moon party' held every month on sunrise beach, Had Rinn. We arrived about 4am, trying to shake off tired eyes by necking bottles of rather suspicious thai Red-Bull'. Luckily most of the chavs were tucked up in bed this late in the day to make room for the true party people- After an amazing sunrise , we headed up the road to an Open air Pub / Club called Backyard, precariously perched on the side of a mountain with an amazing backdrop of the beach and sea below. The flavour of the day was funky house and breakbeat, with the occasion smattering of more Red-Bull and thai whiskey! Full moon party this month was especially big due to one of the most important events in the Thai year- Songkran, which translates to the equivalent of New year eve.

Sunset from Liberty's beach

We spent the day riding around on the back of a pick up truck with 6 other people, armed with a huge barrel of water, some buckets and some talcum powder. Traditionally the younger generation would visit their elders at this time of year to bless them with a splash of water and a little talcum powder to ward off evil spirits over the coming year. In true thai style, this has escalated into a huge event, the streets lined with huge soundsystems with locals and foreigners all getting involved waving huge supersoaker style water guns around, drenching everyone in sight! The event fuelled further with copious amounts Singha & Chang beer!!!After spending 2 weeks at Libertys, we made an unsuccessful mission to Had Tien (which was only accessable by boat on rather treacherous seas) to check into The Sanctuary resort for a 3.

5 day body detox and cleansing course....unfortunately (and on the recommendation of their completely shite website) we didnt book, though at this stage and based on the amount of snobbery we'd seen already, we decided we didnt want to be handing any money over to them anyway so we just chilled on the beaches for the next few days...For some strange reason it rained everyday and the skies were always grey- Bad luck to all the hippies at the Sanctuary- the laugh's on you ;o)